middle income families. >> you said today that congress should deal with the fiscal cliff crisis now, but tackle entitlements, the entitlement questions, later. yesterday, senator lamar alexander said the only thing the president has to do to get an agreement from republicans now is in his words, propose a reasonable way, a reasonable way to control entitlement spending. so is this a catch 22? who bends here? >> i don't expect us to have entitlement reform before december 31st. this is too technical, too important. let's do it right. but i do believe and i said it, any long term deficit reduction will require entitlement reform for one simple reason. medicare untouched, unchanged, runs out of money in 12 years. we need to take a hard look at it to find ways to preserve this important program, have savings that don't hurt the beneficiaries, and actually do reduce the deficit in the process. >> what about those republican critics, senator, who say it's not possible to make any real progress without -- on spending, shall we say, without seriously addressing the medicare, the medicaid, m
